


62 BPM

by night_reveals



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Blood, Deathfic, Ficlet, Graphic Description, M/M, Melodrama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 18:17:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/665004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/night_reveals/pseuds/night_reveals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles goes missing.</p><p>The pack finds him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	62 BPM

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starbolin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbolin/gifts).



> See notes for warnings, please. 
> 
> I can't seem to stop writing Stiles dying in various ways in under 1000 words. This one I've done three times, now, in increasingly melodramatic fashion. Here's hoping posting will make the madness stop.

The door splinters under Isaac’s fist.

The four of them sweep inside, Isaac, Boyd, Erica, Derek. One hunter goes down, then two.

A week ago Derek would have instructed his pack to be _careful_ — leave the humans alive, if possible, knock them out but let them back up.

He was naïve, then.

The absence of a pack member is like a sore in their collective conscious, oozing and aching until it’s all they notice. The past week has been a sort of torture, their inability to bandage their wound a telling weakness.

They have to put that out of their minds.

The next hunter’s throat gushes when Derek rips through it, claws buried in warmth and red.

Scott finally shows, bounding through the door, eyes wide and mouth half-open, stupid with worry and fear.

It bothers Derek to admit it, but even now Scott shares something with Stiles that Derek will never touch.

“This way,” Scott says without prompting, leading their pack through the maze-like compound. Isaac takes an arrow to the thigh with a _whumph_ , the sound of metal on flesh giving their movement forward a rhythm.

Hunters pop like blood bags underneath Derek’s claws, their hearts giving out under one or two well-placed fingers. The hallways of the compound bleed, the floors coated with a sticky new carpet.

“Here, here, here,” Scott says, sniffing around a closed door. The lock doesn't last long once Boyd goes at it, fingers quick and nimble, his mind faster than any brute-force the pack can muster.

With a _snick_ the door opens, the scent of frailty hitting everyone like an overwhelming wave.

“Scott. Erica,” Derek commands. His voice doesn't — tremble.

Derek enters first. The single remaining guard goes down like a flower cut from its stalk, head free of his thick neck.

Erica looks sick, after. Derek doesn't care.

The last member of their pack is spread over the metal table, limbs akimbo and pulse shuddering under his skin. It’s been a week since Derek has seen him, but Stiles couldn't look more different. He’s wane, eyes barely fluttering and cheeks white, chalky. The arms that once were corded with muscle and human strength look newly feeble, youth turned dry and brittle. A long red gash runs down his front, opening him from chest to navel, warm guts shiny in the harsh light.

Scott is crying on Stiles’ other side, tears filling the air with salt. His hands wrap around Stiles’ thin wrist, testing the flesh. Scott’s fingers overlap, and when Derek sees that, he knows: it’s too late. The bite is a gift, but it requires fertile ground. Stiles is a husk of pain and tenacious life, a spark that won’t yet quit — but a spark alone cannot give anything power, let alone life.

Finally Stiles’ eyes focus, finding Scott first, then Derek on his other side, Erica behind Derek.

“Hey,” Stiles says, shakily, and Derek feels more than hears Scott completely break down, shoulders thrumming as his soul comes apart at the seams, as guilt finds his shoulders and perches there, never to leave. Derek knows what that feels like.

For the three minutes it takes for them to say goodbye, Derek tunes out. He’ll never remember what Scott or Stiles says; it’s for them alone, whispered promises that Derek can’t be privy to. Instead he watches the agony of Stiles’ existence, the in-and-out of each breath that must be a line of fire in his lungs. The pain tethers Stiles to the earth, and selfishly Derek is thankful for that.

Conversation over, Scott sinks down to the floor with his hand curled around his phone, 911 blinking on the screen. His curly hair jumps over his fingers, his head so deeply buried Derek wonders if he’ll ever come out.

“I’m dead, huh,” Stiles says to the room at large, wincing as he does.

“Erica,” summons Derek, and she comes, appearing at his shoulder. He nods and she reaches, tangling her hand with Stiles’, leeching the pain from his body. His every muscle relaxes, his open stomach shuddering under the light, and Derek sees Erica duck her head behind her to throw up.

She never stops touching him.

“Hey,” Derek says, resting a single hand at Stiles’ hairline, gentle like he’s never had to be.

“Hey,” mocks Stiles. There’s blood on his lip, bubbling up from inside. Derek can’t take it, so he brushes it away with a single finger. The red sticks to him, dying his skin and splashing over Stiles’ open mouth, not disappearing but growing. “This isn’t how — how I — ”

“No,” Derek agrees, his eyes shuttered, his hand on Stiles’ cooling cheek.

“Well if you’re goin’ to be — “ Stiles coughs and Derek watches his innards move with it, grateful that Erica is taking all that pain away “ — like that. My dad. Scott — “

“They’re pack,” Derek says, unprovoked. It’s better than ‘I’ll take care of them’ or ‘I promise.’ They’re _pack_. They'll live under Derek’s personal protection. Derek will even save the Sheriff from himself, if it comes to it, and Stiles knows that. This promise is one Derek swears he'll keep.

“Good,” is all Stiles says.

Derek bends, then, presses his face against Stiles’ — not a kiss, not anything so human — and Stiles should never have been here, in the hunter’s den, stolen and flayed, it’s not _fair_ —

When he pulls back, Stiles is gone.

From the floor Scott stares, lost and confused, one too few heartbeats in the room. Erica grasps tighter to Stiles’ hand, furrowing her brow like she can draw all the pain in the world if only she tries hard enough.

Derek commits Stiles’ final heartbeat to memory, and turns to face what’s coming.


End file.
